Generic x86_64 System

CircleCI Hex version

This is the base Nerves System configuration for a generic x86_64 system.

FeatureDescription
CPUIntel
Memory512 MB+ DRAM
StorageHard disk/SSD/etc. (/dev/sda)
Linux kernel4.13
IEx terminalDisplay - tty0
Hardware I/ONone
EthernetYes

Please contact us about this if you’re really interested in it. We don’t exercise it regularly except as a base for other x86_64 projects.

Using

The most common way of using this Nerves System is create a project with mix nerves.new and to export MIX_TARGET=x86_64. See the Getting started guide for more information.

If you need custom modifications to this system for your device, clone this repository and update as described in Making custom systems

If you’re new to Nerves, check out the nerves_init_gadget project for creating a starter project. It will get you started with the basics like bringing up networking, initializing the writable application data partition, and enabling ssh-based firmware updates. It’s easiest to begin by using the wired Ethernet interface ‘eth0’ and DHCP.

Root disk naming

If you have multiple SSDs, or other devices connected, it’s possible that Linux will enumerate those devices in a nondeterministic order. This can be mitigated by using udev to populate the /dev/disks/by-* directories, but even this can be inconvenient when you just want to refer to the drive that provides the root filesystem. To address this, erlinit creates /dev/rootdisk0, /dev/rootdisk0p1, etc. and symlinks them to the expected devices. For example, if your root file system is on /dev/mmcblk0p1, you’ll get a symlink from /dev/rootdisk0p1 to /dev/mmcblk0p1 and the whole disk will be /dev/rootdisk0. Similarly, if the root filesystem is on /dev/sdb1, you’d still get /dev/rootdisk0p1 and /dev/rootdisk0 and they’d by symlinked to /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb respectively.